Persuasion Begins With Knowing This
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We are all born with it.
It makes babies cry. And old men weep.
We spend our lives trying to satisfy it.
We succeed. And then it returns to torment us again, forevermore.
Stronger often. Sometime different. But always, it returns.
Sure as the sunrise. It returns.
For it is part of us. Everyone.
Rich and poor. Weak and strong. Irrespective of color, creed, or country.
What is this one insatiable commonality among all humanity?
HUNGER
~ ~ ~
From the moment of our birth, we hunger, for mother’s milk.
Then solid food. Then playmates and playthings.
We hunger for friends, connection, and acceptance as teens.
We hunger for our stupid parents to stop nagging us!
We hunger for good grades. Cash to spend. Dates without end.
We hunger for college acceptance. Or a job that pays well.
For sick rides. Slick kicks. Bigger dicks.
For trouble-free homes, cars, jobs, and mates.
For bigger things. For better things. For lesser troubles.
Finally, as our years grow long, we hunger for fewer wrinkles, more time, and fewer regrets.
We are born with this thing called hunger. And we die with it.
For the eternity of our life, we strive to satisfy it.
To no avail. It returns.
A hunger for this, that, or the other thing.
We don’t need to persuade anyone!
~ ~ ~
Unless it’s for something they don’t want. And how silly is it to persuade for that?
What they already want…They hunger for it.
This is the easy path. The low-hanging fruit.
Just tell me where it is. And how to get it.
What do they hunger for?
That’s your job! To find, “IT”
~ ~ ~
If they’re not buying, doing, or consuming…
- You’re not talking to people who hunger for what you’ve got.
- You’re not making your thing appear the most delicious.
- You’re not schooling them on the perils of NOT satisfying their desire.
The solution to persuasion?
- Talk to those who hunger for your satisfaction.
- Use more appealing words and offers. (use the toolkit to find the right ones)
- Show them, describe the hearse or the devil at the door. The pain of inaction.
We’re all hungry.
I’m hungry for stuff. Something.
You’re hungry. For recognition, money, or the stuff money will buy.
How Will You Satisfy?
~ ~ ~
There are 5 senses through which you are granted access to my brain.
Vision. Audible. Smell. Taste. Touch or feeling.
You have a tool. A mechanism to access my brain…
Your words…with them…
Let me smell those fresh-baked cookies.
Let me hear the crackle and the warmth of the campfire.
Let me feel and smell the salty ocean mist on my face.
Let me feel the whip of procrastination cutting deep into the flesh of my backside.
Let me taste the sour lemon.
Assemble your words, such that…
Our own wonderful human imagination can make it seem real.
Try it yourself. Prove it’s real.
“Holding that cold, fresh-cut lemon half in your right hand, tilt your head back and slowly sqeeeze that cold, wet, sour lemon juice down over your lips and tongue. Let it spill out, cold over your chin and neck. Feel it roll down under your shirt collar. Feel those jaw muscles clench as that sour, tangy lemon juice glides over your tongue and cramps your jowls up tight.”
You felt it.
Just thinking of it caused a real, physical reaction in your body. MY words, causing action in YOUR muscles, your body.
Maybe you don’t want something sour. Regardless, your body, your mind, make it real for you.
Once we can experience it as real in our mind, though our human senses deny that it is real, we will do all the work necessary to bring our imagined desires into reality.
We’ll do all the work. We’ll act. React.
You Just Provide Sufficient Desire
~ ~ ~
Carrots and Sticks.
Tell me how it will be, this thing I hunger for, once received.
How will my life be better then?
Make it easy to acheive. Remove any doubts or risk. Make the consequences of NOT acting more real, more dire, than it is just to get the damn thing.
Tell me, show me, remind me how it will be if I don’t.
How much fatter, sicker, more disgusted will I feel if I don’t start this diet now?
How crappy, how embarrased, how regretful will I feel as I look at this sloppy, floppy suit on the day of my daughter’s wedding.
How shitty will I feel that I can’t help my daughter pay for the wedding because I didn’t grab the income opportunity when you presented it to me?
So here I am, sitting on an uncomfortable folding metal chair, disgusted in my floppy, sloppy suit which tries to hide my big fat gut at the fireman’s hall, listening to crappy music over cheap speakers because when I read your ad, I failed to act. And my daughter paid the price.
That’s a big stick. Did you use it?
Maybe I coudn’t think that far ahead? Maybe the pain of dieting now hid that greater furure pain? Perhaps I blocked it out.
Wish you would have reminded me.
I’m hungry. You’re hungry.
Let’s work together. Show me how.
Please! My life will suck if you can’t find the words.
Don’t sell me. Help me!
Hunger is the ONE advantage the late, great copywriter Gary Halbert singled out.
“Give me a starving crowd!”
We’re all hungry.
What for?
For the satisfaction of hunger.
For the FEELING of desires fulfilled.
Therein lies your great fortune.
In Conclusion
The best way I’ve found to figure out what the heck people truly want or hunger for, not just surface desires, or superficial stories they tell themselves and others at parties to seem “politically or socially proper” is to use The Copywriter’s Persuasion Toolkit.
It’s simple graphic illustrations and fill-in-the-blank templates quickly and easily show you where the starving crowds are and exactly what to feed them. To make them FEEL better.
Underneath, just below the hunger, there is a feeling we are striving for.
Identify the feeling. Show them how the possesion of your thing will provide that feeling – without the usual pain, and you’re 9/10ths the way there.
The Copywriter’s Persuasion Toolkit takes you to that underlying level. The FEELING Level.
It uncovers the rifle shots that burst their Bubble of Preoccupation.
Guessing what folks want wastes time, money, and goodwill. Needlessly.
Why struggle to find out what people want – when there are simple tools available?
Power tools for copywriters.
Many seem to like it. Maybe you will too?
And there’s certainly no risk to try it.
None.
How else can I help you get what YOU hunger for?
– Robert Schwarztrauber
